


Clair de Lune

by roserocksrapidly



Category: Hikaru no Go
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet, Death from Old Age, Gen, Grief/Mourning, slight hints of akihika
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-28
Updated: 2017-07-28
Packaged: 2018-12-08 05:10:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11639580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roserocksrapidly/pseuds/roserocksrapidly
Summary: Hikaru is dying.He is not afraid.





	Clair de Lune

**Author's Note:**

> I've been stalking this fandom's fics for like 2 years now. Thought I'd contribute for once.  
> In case you couldn't tell from the title, I listened to Claude Debussy's "Clair de Lune" while writing this and I recommend you listen to it too. Really ramps up the feels factor.

Hikaru is dying.

Hikaru is all alone, sitting in front of Torajirou's goban, and he is dying.

But Hikaru is not sad.

He knows this should scare him, but Hikaru is an old man, and as he searches for meaning in the intersecting lines of the goban for the millionth time, Hikaru feels ready.

He wonders if this is how Sai felt.

He wonders if death will let him meet Sai again.

He's had this thought before, in the dark hours of the night, when his mind won't go to sleep and there is no stain on the goban and no ghost hovering by his side. Maybe if Sai won't come to him, he'll just have to go to Sai. But Hikaru could never. He knew what it was like to get left behind without a word. He wouldn't do that to the people in his life. Especially not Touya.

But it's different now.

As Hikaru sits across his empty goban with the gentle light of the moon seeping through his window, he thinks of Touya Akira. It had already been 6 months since his eternal rival passed away. It still felt like just yesterday. Hikaru never really realized just how much he needed Touya in his life until he was so suddenly gone. Typical Hikaru.

There weren't many people at Touya's funeral. Most of those who mourned him were fans and Go reporters and young pros, just starting out. Hikaru and Touya's time had passed and so had many of their friends. Touya's parents, Hikaru's parents, Ogata, Isumi, Waya. Touya didn't even have kids or grandkids to mourn him. The closest thing to family at that funeral was Hikaru himself.

A lot of people were disappointed that Touya did not marry and have kids to pass his talents down to. The press often asked him why he didn't "settle down." That was the thing. Touya could never "settle down." Neither could Hikaru. Both of them were so focused on improving in Go and beating each other and someday achieving that elusive Hand of God that there was no time for rest.

When Hikaru hit his 30s, his mother started nagging him about finding a nice wife and giving his poor, old mom a couple grandchildren to dote on. Both of them knew that would never happen.

Waya once suggested that Hikaru and Touya should just marry each other. They spent all their time together already and were certified experts at marital spats. Perfect match.

During one quiet game in Hikaru's run down apartment, Hikaru had asked Touya if they should take Waya's advice. Touya had simply looked up over the intertwining patterns of black and white on the goban and Hikaru had looked into his eyes and understood.

"Are you an idiot?"

They were both married to Go already.

Now, as Hikaru feels his time ticking away, the empty spot at the other side of the goban feels emptier than ever.

He wishes for Sai in these moments. Those days he spent with the ghost by his side were never once lonely. He wonders if Sai had ever felt alone in his time with Hikaru. Hikaru is once again wracked by the guilt that has followed him like a loyal dog his whole life; Even now, shame burns in his chest when he thinks of how he neglected his companion.

Maybe in death, Hikaru will be able to repent for his mistakes.

It is strange, Hikaru thinks, how much of his life has revolved around Sai when their time together was but a few short years. It had been many decades since Sai had disappeared and yet, here Hikaru is, still agonizing about a ghost from his youth. In the thousands of years Sai had been around, Hikaru must have been but a speck of dust.

Sometimes, Hikaru wonders if Sai had even been real. Sai is a ghost in every sense of the word. Besides his legacy on the internet, there is no trace of Fujiwara no Sai in the history books and no effect on the world outside of when he had been Honinbou Shuusaku. Not a living soul besides Hikaru has even heard the name "Fujiwara no Sai." Even on the forums that prevail today in the increasingly popular world of NetGo, the entity know as "sai" is still just that: an entity. Maybe Sai was only a figment of the overactive imagination of a child. Hikaru knows this isn't true.

When Ogata was lying on his deathbed, Hikaru had whispered the truth in his ear. It felt weird and cruel to only be telling Ogata the truth now, when his degrading mind could barely form words anymore. It felt worse to not tell him though.

Ogata's last words to Hikaru were "thank you."

Hikaru is not a good person. He feels this in every bone of his body. Ever since that day he had sat crying over Shuusaku's kifu, Hikaru understood this truth. He is selfish and keeps Sai to himself when Sai deserves so much more. He took solace in the idea that Sai lived on in his Go, but now, even that was going to disappear.

Hikaru is going to die and he is going to take Sai with him.

That is Hikaru's only regret.

He knows these moments are his last. Yose has ended and he is only counting his komi now.

Hikaru wonders if his life had not already ended, 6 months ago when he sat across Torajirou's goban, as he is doing now, with Touya, old and withered and still so very passionate, in his proper place on the other side.

Touya had showed up at his house unannounced in the dead of the night, his eyes speaking of passion and desperation and a need for conclusion.

It was their final game. Their final chance.

Touya had been crying. Hikaru probably was too. For all their years of bickering, it didn't matter who had won in the end because between them lied their greatest creation- their last miracle: The Hand of God.

Without words, they both knew. Their life's work and the goal of so many before them. The entire reason one man had cheated his own death and waited a thousand years. It was all achieved, not in the excitement and pomp and circumstance of an official game where the kifu would be reviewed and replayed for generations to come, but in the dim lights of Hikaru's quiet, old home with no witness besides the miracle workers themselves.

They cried. Not only for relief and fulfillment and swelling pride, but for sadness that there was no more work to do and for the burden of knowing that this moment was theirs and theirs alone. They could not share this with anyone because they had spent their whole lives in search of this one moment. They knew they could not deprive the future of Go of this journey. It was a bitter sweet thing. Hikaru wonders if the Hand of Go had not been achieved by all of the masters before them already. If Hikaru and Touya were not the only ones to have cried for this burden and took it with them to their deaths.

When the tears subsided, Touya had looked up from their masterpiece and did not need to speak because Hikaru could see it in his eyes. He spoke anyway.

"I'm so glad to have met you."

A few days later, Hikaru got the call that Touya had passed on peacefully in his sleep.

Hikaru has not touched a Go stone since that night. It was unlike when Sai had left; It was not grief that kept him from playing, but the fact that no more games were needed. Hikaru had done what he had set out to do and is only waiting now.

Hikaru is dying.

He sits at his goban and tightens his hold on his old and weathered fan. Hikaru looks across the board and wonders if Touya finally got to meet Sai. Maybe they are playing a game right now.

He opens the goke and begins to replay a game from long ago.

(Ogata would probably hover over Sai and Touya's game, being his nosy, pushy self like usual.)

Hikaru knows this game better than any. It is not recorded anywhere, but the placement of these stones comes as easily as breathing.

(Waya and Isumi would sit to the side, observing as well. Both searching for something to learn from and improve themselves with.)

Hikaru's hands are old and wrinkly, but it is not age that makes them quiver.

(Touya Kouyou would lean over Sai's shoulder, appraising his son's skill against the man who beat him.)

The game is unfinished, just as it had been a lifetime ago.

(Kuwabara would sit to the side, laughing heartedly with Torajirou over the scene they all make.)

Hikaru wonders what Sai will say to him. Will he be proud?

Hikaru opens his fan, hiding his tears from an invisible audience, and looks across the goban. He can see it. Sai and his dainty hands and extravagant robes and silly hat.

Hikaru is dying.

Sai smiles kindly at him.

Hikaru is not afraid.

"Will you play with me again, Sai?"

Sai opens his fan, a mirror of Hikaru's own. Behind him, Touya and everyone else sits and smiles. They are waiting to watch this game as well.

"I'm coming, Sai. I'll be there soon."

Hikaru closes his eyes.


End file.
